The Canadian government says it will back an international moratorium against efforts to open up the deep sea to mining after a Vancouver-based company sparked a process to regulate the industry.
The announcement, made Monday by three senior cabinet ministers, comes nearly five months after Canada declared an “effective moratorium” on deep sea mining in domestic waters and ahead of three weeks of negotiations in Kingston, Jamaica, where delegates from around the world are hashing out the future of the industry.
Federal fisheries minister Joyce Murray said the decision to back the moratorium was due to a lack of a strong regulatory regime and a poor understanding of the comprehensive impacts seabed mining will have on the environment.
“The protection, conservation, restoration and sustainable use of ocean ecosystems is essential to all life on earth,” said federal fisheries minister Joyce Murray in a statement.
Two years ago, The Metals Company partnered with the Pacific island nation of Nauru to submit an application to mine an abyssal plain several kilometres below the ocean’s surface between Hawaii and Mexico. That triggered a two-year countdown in which the International Seabed Authority (ISA) — the little-known United Nations body — was required to write the rules of the road for deep sea mining.
The ISA negotiations, which began Monday, could lead to an opening up of seabed mining as early as this year.
“On substance, Canada is not saying anything new,” said a spokesperson for The Metals Company. “On theatrics, these statements are orchestrated by NGOs who work hard to pin new countries to their ‘rising wave’ picture. They don’t change much what happens on the ground in Kingston.”
The spokesperson added that it is the company’s “strong preference” to submit an application for a mining licence once the regulations are in place. First, the company said it hopes to “set a high bar for this industry” by completing a “high quality comprehensive, science-driven environmental and social impact assessment” on the impact of collecting the nodules.
Source: Times Colonist
